This past Saturday was quite a day and I wanted to recap it for you!
We had a construction team here for a week. They left on Saturday morning so we had to get them to the bus station by 8am. We left at 6:40 and arrived a little early. We finally got them on the bus and then left to start our day.
Our first stop was the ‘normal’ grocery store. We picked up a few things here and then headed to the open market for other things that would be cheaper there. Manno (our English speaking Haitian construction coordinator) and I walked through numerous stalls with people yelling at me to buy things from them. I do not know enough of the language to barter by myself yet so I was reliant upon Manno. He kept walking past things I needed and I was wondering why we were not yet stopping. Finally we stopped at the corner of a busy intersection of people carrying loads of things.
I was introduced to the stall owner and was promptly given a chair. Manno said she had most of the things we needed and if she did not have them, then she would send someone to get the things we needed. As I sat there naming the things we needed they would show up. It was great not having to negotiate the price with everyone and I feel like I got the price that Haitian’s would have gotten. It quickly became a reality that there was NO way that Manno and I would be able to get our things to our bus. So a lady was hired to put our things in her basket and she carried them to our bus ON HER HEAD….now we had rice, beans, eggs, potatoes, oranges, avocadoes, garlic, butter, ketchup, cereal, soap, pasta, tomato paste and a few other things. It had to have been really heavy but she made it look easy.
After putting our things in our bus (that would eventually make its way back to our house) we made our way to the street to find a van taptap (form of public transportation). We drove to where one of the vehicles we would be looking at was located. After looking at the engine and the insides of the car we hopped in and took it for a spin. There was another car we wanted to look at so they took us to that car and then left. We checked out that car and we were not as impressed with the second car as the first. We had the second owner drop us off at the gas station where we proceeded to buy lunch. From there Manno needed to go and buy a new cell phone. He was worried about how full the truck taptaps were so we flagged down a ‘taxi’. Not our normal taxi as we picked up 2 other people throughout our drive to the phone store. About 30 minutes later we were done at the phone store and were waiting for another truck taptap to take us as close to home as we could get. We jumped in the front of the truck and were off!!
About 20 minutes later we got out and had to flag down a motorcycle to take us the rest of the way home. THANK GOD we did not have all of our groceries 
A 6 minute moto ride later and we were home! Manno went to take a nap for 3 hours while I put away our groceries, washed dishes from that morning and started my laundry.
Now laundry is no easy task. It is a normal American washing machine they have here but it does not quite work right. I had to fill up the drum with water, turn it on and wait for it to start spinning. Then when it drained the water, I had to fill it up again with water for the rinse cycle. When that was finished the clothes did not go in a dryer like in America…they went on the line to dry. While I was hanging the first load of laundry biting ants ATE me up. It really hurt 
So that was my day! I was exhausted by the time I was finished with dinner (which was heated up leftovers from the team). Manno on the other hand, having had a 3 hour nap, was ready to play cards or watch a movie….I had to tell him not this time as I still needed to shower before bed. The lights in my room were out at 9 pm and I awoke at 5:30 this morning when the sun came up
Just another day in Haiti!
